
The Procuress 1656; Oil on canvas, 143 x 130 cm; Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

A Woman Asleep at a Table c. 1657; Oil on canvas, 87.6 x 76.5 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Soldier and a Laughing Girl c. 1658; Oil on canvas, 49.2 x 44.4 cm; The Frick Collection, New York


The Kitchen Maid
c. 1658; Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 41 cm; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The Music Lesson c. 1662-65; Oil on canvas, 74.6 x 64.1 cm; Royal Collection, St. James' Palace, London

Woman in Blue Reading a Letter
c. 1662-63; Oil on canvas, 46.5 x 39 cm; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Woman Holding a Balance
c. 1664; Oil on canvas, 40.3 x 35.6 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington
This painting has been known until recently as The Goldweigher or Girl Weighing Pearls. Microscopic analysis, however, has revealed the pans of the balance to be empty. The highlight on the pans is not rendered with lead-tin yellow, which is used elsewhere on the canvas to depict gold. Vermeer represented pearls with a thin gray layer topped with a white highlight. The pan highlight is a single layer. In addition, there no loose pearls on the table that would indicate other pearls waiting to be weighed.
This seemingly trivial analysis as to what is being weighed actually bears importantly on the meaning of the work. For Woman Holding a Balance is overtly allegorical. The woman stands between a depiction of the Last Judgment hung in a heavy black frame and a table covered with jewelry representing material possessions. The empty scale stresses that she is balancing spiritual rather than material considerations. Vermeer's portrayal does not impart a sense of tension or conflict, rather the woman exudes serenity. Her self-knowledge is reflected in the mirror on the wall. Vermeer's point is that we should lead lives of moderation with full understanding of the implications of a final judgment. The composition is designed to focus attention on the small and delicate balance being held. The woman's arms act as a frame, with the small finger of her right hand extended to echo the horizontal lever of the balance. The bottom of the painting frame is even altered to provide a partial niche for the scales. The frame ends higher in front of the woman than it does behind her. The complex interplay between verticals and horizontals, objects and negative space, and light and shadow results in a strongly balanced, yet still active composition. The scales are balanced, but dynamically asymmetrical. A cleaning in 1994 revealed previously undetectable gold trim on the black frame that provides a tonal link to the yellow of the curtain and the woman's costume.
Vermeer has endowed Woman Holding a Balance with more overtly allegorical context than his other domestic scenes. As such, it loses some of the invitingly subjective interpretation of a less direct work such as Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. Nevertheless, Vermeer's masterful composition and execution produced a powerful and moving work.

Young Woman with a Water Pitcher c. 1664-65; Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 40.6 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Girl with a Pearl Earring c. 1665-1666; Oil on canvas, 44.5 x 39 cm; Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague

The Concert c. 1665-66; Oil on canvas, 72.5 x 64.7 cm; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

The Girl with the Red Hat
c. 1665-67; Oil on panel, 22.8 x 18 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington
Coming upon this painting in the exhibition, the viewer is confronted with an abrupt change from the other works. The Girl with the Red Hat is small even by Vermeer's standards; it is his only known work that was executed on wood panel; and most importantly, its immediacy and intimacy contrast sharply with the meditative mood of the other paintings.
Despite its modest dimensions, a strong visual impact results from the large scale of the girl. Brought close to the picture plane, she communicates directly with the viewer. Her direct gaze and slightly parted lips impart a sense of spontaneity and anticipation. Vermeer relies heavily on color to establish the mood of the work. The red of the hat and the blue of the robe contrast strongly with the muted background. The bright red of the hat advances, heightening the immediacy of the girl's glance, while the blue of the robe recedes, balancing the composition. Vermeer retained warmth in the robe by painting the blue over a reddish-brown ground. The materials - the red hat, robe and chair finials - are animated by highlights of reflected light. Subtle highlights on the girl's eye and mouth animate her expression!. Finally, the intense white of the girl's cravat, painted as a thick impasto with parts later chipped off, cradles her face, focusing attention on her expression!.
The small size of this work allowed Vermeer to use painstaking detail in its execution. A precise depiction of texture and light is achieved through the duplication of thin glazes over painted ground. To represent the hat, Vermeer firs painted an opaque layer of deep orange red. He then added semi-transparent strokes of light red and orange to render the feathers. The robe highlights allow the underlying blue to show through. With this glaze technique, the underlying layer is used to help model the forms of the composition.
Most scholars agree that Vermeer utilized a camera obscura in the composition and execution of The Girl with a Red Hat. It is possible that he chose a wood panel support to replicate the gloss of a camera obscura image, which was normally projected onto glass. In particular, the diffused specular highlights of the lion head chair finial resemble the unfocused effect of an image seen in a camera obscura. Vermeer expert Arthur Wheelock points out, however, that Vermeer did not simply paint on top of an image projected by a camera obscura. While camera obscura effects were emulated in portions of the painting, in other places, the expected effects are not seen.
Compositional adjustments also contradict the literal reproduction of a camera obscura image. For instance, the left chair finial is larger and angled to the right. If the chair top is extended to the left, it ends up misaligned with the finial. Vermeer adjusted the lines of the chairback to stress the foreground plane of the composition while at the same time, allowing space for the girl's arm to rest.

Mistress and Maid c. 1667-68; Oil on canvas, 90.2 x 78.7 cm; Frick Collection, New York

The Geographer
c. 1668-69; Oil on canvas, 52 x 45.5 cm; Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main
In The Geographer, Vermeer presents another individual in an interior. This male figure, though, is endowed with intense energy in comparison to the contemplative women of other compositions. The flow of light from left to right activates the canvas. The flow is accentuated compositionally by the massing of objects on the left. The light spills forcefully into the open area on the right, casting a powerful series of diagonal shadows. Vermeer adjusted his initial depiction of the figure to provide a more active stance. Detailed study of the canvas reveals that the geographer originally looked down at the table, with his dividers also pointed down. Adjusting the composition to align the man's face and the dividers with the flow of light gave further energy to the movement across the canvas. The folds of the robe also serve to activate the figure, with their dynamic, almost abstract depiction in their sunlit portion.
The painting accurately renders the cartographic objects that express the theme: the sea chart, globe, dividers, square and a cross-staff that was used to measure the elevation angle of the sun and stars. It is probable that Vermeer's sophisticated presentation of these instruments was informed by his association with famed scientist Anthony Van Leeuwenhoek. Although no documents exist linking the two, they were both born in Delft in the same year. A contemporary portrait of Leeuwenhoek closely resembles the figure in Vermeer's geographer, and it is very possible that Leewenhoek served as the model.
Another Vermeer work, The Astronomer, is commonly considered a pendant to The Geographer. In it, the same model is depicted, this time among the instruments of astronomical study. Both paintings dramatically convey the excitement of scholarly inquiry and discovery. Considering these works as pendants offers an allegorical interpretation: the astronomer, student of the heavens, searches for spiritual guidance; the geographer, student of the earth, charts the proper course for temporal life.

The Art of Painting
c. 1666-73; Oil on canvas, 130 x 110 cm; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna





The Lacemaker
c. 1669-70; Oil on canvas transferred to panel, 23.9 x 20.5 cm; Musée du Louvre, Paris
The Lacemaker is another small scale painting, nearly dwarfed by its impressive wooden frame. Unlike the more contemplative figures in Vermeer's work, the subject here is very active, intensely focused on a physical activity. As opposed to the full-figure compositions, where furniture and drapery act to facilitate or deflect the viewer's visual entry, The Lacemaker brings the subject dramatically to the foreground. As a result, the viewer is drawn into a powerful emotional engagement with the work. Although the composition is quite shallow, there are different depths of field that draw the viewer into the canvas. The forms nearest the eye are unfocused, which encourages the viewer to pass on to the more distinctly defined middleground.
The intimacy is accentuated by the small scale, personal subject matter, and natural composition. The lacemaker's total preoccupation with her work is indicated through her confined pose. The use of yellow, a dynamic, psychologically strong hue, reinforces the perception of intense effort. Contrasts of form serve to animate the image. For example, her hairstyle expresses her essential nature - both tightly constrained and, in the loose ringlet behind her left shoulder, rhythmically flowing. Another strong contrast exists between the tightly drawn threads she holds and the smoothly flowing red and white threads in the foreground. The precision and clearness of vision demanded by her work is expressed in the light accents that illuminate her forehead and fingers.
The diffused ocular effect of the foreground objects, especially the threads, was definitely derived from a camera obscura image. Vermeer used the informal, close framing of the composition suggested by the camera obscura to accentuate the realistic, immediate impact of the painting. Contemporary Dutch painting portrayed industriousness as an allegory of domestic virtue, While the inclusion of the prayer book pays fealty to this theme, it is a secondary concern to the depiction of the handicraft of lacemaking, and, in the highest sense, the creative act itself. Once again, Vermeer succeeded in transforming a transitory image into one of eternal truth.

The Love Letter
c. 1669-70; Oil on canvas, 44 x 38.5 cm; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid
c. 1670-72; Oil on panel, 72.2 x 59.7 cm; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

The Guitar Player c. 1672; Oil on canvas, 53 x 46.3 cm; Kenwood, English Heritage
After his death Vermeer was overlooked by all but the most discriminating collectors and art historians for more than 200 years. His few pictures were attributed to other artists. Only after 1866, when the French critic W. Thore-Burger "rediscovered" him, did Vermeer's works become widely known and his works heralded as genuine Vermeers.
Intimate scenes
Barely 35 works are known to have been painted by Vermeer. His early paintings - mainly history pieces - reveal the influence of the Utrecht Caravaggists. In his later works, however, he produced meticulously constructed interiors with just one or two figures - usually women. These are intimate genre paintings in which the principal figure is invariably engaged in some everyday activity: one is reading a letter, another is fastening a collar about her neck, yet another is pouring out milk. Often the light enters Vermeer's paintings from a window. He was a master at depicting the way light illuminates objects and in the rendering of materials. The Rijksmuseum has three domestic portraits by Vermeer and one street scene: the world-famous Little Street.
|